Random ELE thoughts (low ranked player)

Hello all,

So far I'm seeing no changes to Ele shamans on 5.4 ptr so I'm interested into your opinions on the current (and come 5.4) state of Ele. I'm a low ranked player (1700 2s, 1600 3s) so I'll not pretend I pvp well.

In my opinion Ele is fine at the moment. I struggle a lot against any (mostly melee) spec that can tunnel/shut me down effectively. Namely, rogues (cc, cloak) and ferals (immunity to hex and roots if played decently) are the biggest pain in the ass to deal with. Also healers that purge flame shocks will gib my damage by at least 50%.

To counter me, the best thing to do is cc my team mate(s) and tunnel me to death. I lack immunity cooldowns (bubble, deterr, block etc.) and my defensives aren't that great (30% damage reduction on a 1min CD, heals). Make sure you don't get rooted -> capacitor and most likely you'll kill me.

I'm very interested in hearing what you fellow pvpers think on this topic!

I always train shamans no matter what the spec or rating. As you've stated shamans lack a reliable defensive cooldown save for the resto totem. I would like them to tone down the burst of both ele and enhance slightly and give you guys a class wide defensive CD. It doesn't have to be a total immune CD like bubble, iceblock, deter, etc. but just something across all specs that would give you a bit more survivability.

Pretty sure you dont get why ele is so op until +2k mmr. The fact that ele can within a global cooldown drop you from 100-20 is the problem: their rng is both too dangerous and unpredictable, which later in the games reaches uncounterable procs due to insane haste in todays gear and decent mastery. They dont need ascendance to global people.

To counter me, the best thing to do is cc my team mate(s) and tunnel me to death. I lack immunity cooldowns (bubble, deterr, block etc.) and my defensives aren't that great (30% damage reduction on a 1min CD, heals). Make sure you don't get rooted -> capacitor and most likely you'll kill me.

Those tips sound great if it was pve mindset about. The thing with 3s comps is to get partners that will fill out your weakness: that is why LSD is such a strong comp; locks gate, control, dispel protection on FS and locks HS will keep you decently alive, but having a rdudu hots along with your defensive CDs will definetaley push ele to not be the most viable target to kill in every moment.

PvE is a minigame // Rerolled from affly to spriest after 8 years, thx pandaland changes

2v2 isn't balanced but as far as I'm concerned, any class that is viable @2.2k while doubled up in 2s is OP. Ele+ele is viable, therefore they're OP
Here's an example from a game we played last night.
They played aggressively from the start and managed to oom our disc priest. They staggered their ascendances, first one burned through all my defensive CDs, second one burned through the priest ones.

^Are you feral or moonkin? If you are moonkin, I can see it being a pain, but if you are feral then you simply got outplayed badly and it has nothing to do with ele being OP (which they are, mind you).

^Are you feral or moonkin? If you are moonkin, I can see it being a pain, but if you are feral then you simply got outplayed badly and it has nothing to do with ele being OP (which they are, mind you).

Feral, there was nothing we could have done differently. I'd have preferred to have been moonkin tbh. They played well but I can't see how they outplayed us badly. Look at their healing and damage done, our priest left immediately - the only mistake we're aware we made was not getting an opener (had to re-symbiosis after last minute talent change) but that is no big deal at all. It was our only loss of the night (admittedly we had two draws vs rsham/feral and rsham/WW) and we smashed our mirrors, we honestly weren't playing badly! Our comp is strong in 2v2 but we were countered so hard it was unreal. Double windshear and fear breakers really hurt us.

This. Currently Elemental is only retarded because stacking flame shocks on 2-3+ targets can give back to back lava bursts. Notice how nearly all kills from Ele Shamans aren't during Ascendance, which is their 'burst' cooldown.

Make Elemental Flame Shock work similar to how Mage bombs work. If it hurts Elemental PvE (which it shouldn't), then buff the AoE flame totem which is useless in PvP.

I'm fine with Elemental hitting hard (I play one) but getting back to back lava bursts from FS on 3 targets isn't skillful or fun for the other team.

This. Currently Elemental is only retarded because stacking flame shocks on 2-3+ targets can give back to back lava bursts. Notice how nearly all kills from Ele Shamans aren't during Ascendance, which is their 'burst' cooldown.

Make Elemental Flame Shock work similar to how Mage bombs work. If it hurts Elemental PvE (which it shouldn't), then buff the AoE flame totem which is useless in PvP.

I'm fine with Elemental hitting hard (I play one) but getting back to back lava bursts from FS on 3 targets isn't skillful or fun for the other team.

The flame aoe totem is utterly worthless for elem in pve too. Shaman have to hardcast pretty much every damaging spell they have and the instant lava bursts really spices it all up alittle bit--- especially when having a kitty made out of glue on your back. It does feel alittle broken that a lucky train of lava bursts can insta-gib a player but removing those instant casts will hurt the fun of elem more than you think

It would work, but you'd still end up with random burstiness sometimes - sometimes 2 ticks proc back to back off one player - sometimes none proc for the full duration.

In 3.0 when they introduced the taste for blood mechanic to arms warriors, it played very much like current ele. You'd rend multiple targets and could get flooded with random unregulated overpower procs. By wrath's launch (iirc), the effect had been buffed to 100% proc chance but with an icd. I see a set precedence here for control on a comparable mechanic; I don't see why they couldn't just do something similar to ele. It seems that the devs love rng on the drawing board but are so slow to see (or remember) its effect ingame.

2v2 isn't balanced but as far as I'm concerned, any class that is viable @2.2k while doubled up in 2s is OP. Ele+ele is viable, therefore they're OP
Here's an example from a game we played last night.
They played aggressively from the start and managed to oom our disc priest. They staggered their ascendances, first one burned through all my defensive CDs, second one burned through the priest ones.

Playing an overpowered comp hardly indicates any lack of understanding. If anything in this case it adds weight to his point, as he's calling something overpowered from the perspective of already overpowered.

This. Currently Elemental is only retarded because stacking flame shocks on 2-3+ targets can give back to back lava bursts.

I'm fine with Elemental hitting hard (I play one) but getting back to back lava bursts from FS on 3 targets isn't skillful or fun for the other team.

I agree with you regarding fun for my opponents, but on the other hand it's our only hard hitting instant (aprat from stacked earth shock). I'd much rather see it's damage corrected (nerfed) then proc rate capped.

Then again, something has to be changed for sure. Even as a mediocre pvper, I managed some stupid kills on 1.8k rated players (haven't played against higher yet).

As far as I've read, things will complicate further in the next patch due to how our mastery works. There was a long post (here or on official, can't find it atm) discussing obscene amount of mastery that will be obtainable next patch. Add Echo to all that and things get even more stupid.

I agree with you regarding fun for my opponents, but on the other hand it's our only hard hitting instant (aprat from stacked earth shock). I'd much rather see it's damage corrected (nerfed) then proc rate capped.

There's nothing wrong with good damage. A hardcasted Ele blast into fulmination with a lava burst proc is fine - that can be done with 1 flameshock out and rewards you for casting - and can nearly kill someone if you get lucky with crits.

The problem (in my eyes) is when you, as an elemental shaman, just blanket flame shocks and sometimes get so lucky that you can kill without casting just from lava burst procs - that shouldn't happen.

Making lava burst proc from only the most recent flame shock would, in my opinion, would bump elementals down from tier 1 to strong tier 2. Strong, but not completely imbalanced like they are right now.

There's nothing wrong with good damage. A hardcasted Ele blast into fulmination with a lava burst proc is fine - that can be done with 1 flameshock out and rewards you for casting - and can nearly kill someone if you get lucky with crits.

The problem (in my eyes) is when you, as an elemental shaman, just blanket flame shocks and sometimes get so lucky that you can kill without casting just from lava burst procs - that shouldn't happen.

Making lava burst proc from only the most recent flame shock would, in my opinion, would bump elementals down from tier 1 to strong tier 2. Strong, but not completely imbalanced like they are right now.

They would need more defensive cooldown if that would to happen , if that did happen.
Train the ele shaman , he won't be able to do much.

My main language is not english , feel free to send me a PM if i made errors that bother you , i shall try to correct it next time!www.Joethejoe.weebly.com

im not a huge fan of the new ele playstyle this patch, but its great to have a good season when its been so long. with the right comp, team, and enough practice, you can take ele to some competitive ratings. i think you'll find the most success with a high CC class like UA lock, frost mage, maybe even feral druid? i havent tested that last one personally but im sure someone has. If you're pairing with another low CC class, you are going to have more difficulties landing a kill and peeling.

Removing the LvB turret would just crush the spec back to it's primitive roots. Ele Blast combo is far too reliant on RNG, timing, luck and positioning to be worth it and the entire spec then revolves around you praying for an ele blast and fulmination crit. Your constant pressure is nullified completely by removing this, not to mention it would actually damage PvE as well. Flame Shock multi-dotting is used for many fights with Megaera being the most prominent.

The problem came from buffing the damage by 25%. Before this, it was wasn't as strong on burst. I think more needs to be done in order to make Ele Blast combos more viable and more reliable but it's a pretty difficult solution to fix without it having severe repercussions on other aspects of the game.

Make Elemental Flame Shock work similar to how Mage bombs work. If it hurts Elemental PvE (which it shouldn't), then buff the AoE flame totem which is useless in PvP.

That's not an inherent fix to the problem because it doesn't consider multi-dotting for LvB procs which are a decent DPS increase if you can manage them well. You're buffing something that doesn't help much in PvE and nerfing something without sufficient compensation. Without the compensation, as I've said, Ele would be back to subpar status.

It's a problem with class design that's not easily fixed since almost everything is revolved around RNG. Every ability has a chance to do massively more damage than average which is a problem. It's difficult to balance accordingly without changing the core overload and echo mechanics in addition to the 250% crit damage that ele exclusively gets.

I'd really like to see people suggest a solution to Ele's random burst without significantly changing the class, nerfing the spec to oblivion, buffing the spec immensely or damaging PvE performance.

Right now, all I can think of is slapping an internal cooldown on the lava surge that lasts about 3 seconds but I don't know what ramifications this would have in PvE.

any nerfs to flame shock like procs off the last target just RAMS down the fucking throat that ele is a useless spec to bring to a multi dotting fight where just about every other caster plays fine and will be topping the meters, ele is already terrible and useless, lowering the instant lava bursts just makes it more laughable, only way that'd be remotely acceptable to make it so LS can proc off the last FS you casted is buffing the dot damage by about 500%.